


How It Ends

by MaryFlanner



Category: Glee
Genre: Lj import, M/M, There are probably typos, old skool
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-13
Updated: 2019-08-13
Packaged: 2020-08-20 12:51:10
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,856
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20228146
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MaryFlanner/pseuds/MaryFlanner
Summary: Kurt and Blaine after high school, written as the show was airing.





	How It Ends

“Love is like ice in the hands of children.” -- only surviving fragment of Loves of Achilles by Sophocles

It’s a Friday night in Ohio, and nothing anywhere is extraordinary. The same stars are beginning to creep out into the same mauve dark over the same fields. A boy is leaving Lima to see his friend and his dad is at home, watching TV with his new wife. All three wonder if they’re making the right decisions. But promises made tonight between two boys that are almost men will plant seeds that take years to bloom. And it will bloom into something that will be the greatest comfort the three of them will ever know.

~*~

Burt’s only an expert about a couple of things. Mustangs. Buying presents for women. His son. His son, being quite a bit smarter than his old man, must know this. Therefore, Burt recognizes that the little song and dance they’re about to play out is almost entirely for his benefit. Kurt’s got the “I’m not telling you something” eye flicker. He’s got the “nervous to the point of nausea” school bag strap death grip. And, oddly, he’s got the “there’s a boy” weight shift. Obviously, there’s been a boy for quite a while and Burt’s awfully fond of that boy. This leaves one thing: something about The Boy is different. Burt knows what his son is going to say before he even opens his mouth.

“Dad?” he says. “I’m staying at Blaine’s. Okay?”

Burt sighs. It’s not the request. He’s heard it (or, more appropriately, the not-a-question version of it) on many, many Fridays, when a blur of tight pants and too much aftershave calls out to him as it leaps from the front porch, “Stayin’atBlaine’sDadloveyoubye!”

“Are his parents going to be there?” Burt asks.

Kurt licks then bites his lips, eyes going a little wide. And here it is. For the first time in his life, his son is going to lie to him to save his own ass. Over a boy.

“No,” he says at last. Kurt faced down breaking the trust of a lifetime and blinked. Despite the implications of the answer, Burt is happy to have gotten it.

“Sit down,” he sighs. “I think we need to have a talk.”

Kurt folds himself onto the couch next to him. Nerves make him graceful, Burt’s noticed, and he’s moving like a dancer right now. Uh oh.

“I thought we already had that conversation,” Kurt grins a little self-consciously. “And you must have done a pretty good job--I’ve not be a party to a single unwanted pregnancy.”

Burt laughs. “This isn’t birds and bees, kid.”

“Bees and bees?”

In truth, birds and bees had been much easier. By the time he had gotten around to it, Burt had suspected that the complexities of relations with the fairer sex were going to be lost on his son. The glassy, slightly disgusted look confirmed Burt’s suspicions.

“Somehow I doubt that I could be much help to with the mechanics of things. Get serious for a second, though. We’re overdue. We should have sat down like this weeks ago.”

Kurt startles and flushes, so Burt knows they’re on the same page. Last month, he and Carole skipped the post dinner movie and came home to Blaine’s car in the driveway and a silent house. Burt called “boys?” and heard from Kurt’s room a muffled “Oh fuck!” and “Shit! Shitshitshitshitshit!” and the distinctive clink of what he really hoped was glass wear and not belt buckles. Kurt emerged with wrinkled clothes and Blaine with messy hair, which told him everything he needed to know.

“Dad, we didn’t--”

Burt cuts him off with a gesture. “You did or you didn’t, or you’re planning to or you’re not. That’s not the point. Someday you will. And Kurt? I’ve got to tell you, you’re not so good at thinking things through before you do them.”

Kurt sighs. “Fortunately, Blaine thinks enough for four of us.”

“That’s my point, Kurt,” Burt steels himself for what’s coming next. “You aren’t always going to be with Blaine.”

Whatever reaction Burt was expecting--anger, indignation, annoyance--he didn’t get it. Kurt slouched, sank deeper into the couch, stared ahead.

“You’re going to go off to college--somewhere far from here--and so is he, and I know what it feels like right now. But Kurt? High school romances seldom last forever, even if you stay put.”

Kurt has his hands clenched and his eyes squeezed shut. “I know, Dad,” he says just above a whisper. “I know.”

“I don’t know what your plans are for this weekend. But I know it involves staying over, alone. You’ve never done it before, Kurt, so you don’t know how...intimate... sharing a bed with someone is. I’m not talking about sex. Frankly, I’m not thrilled about that, but I’m not worried about it, either. You’re smart enough to protect yourself. I’m talking about waking up next to another person. Sleeping beside them. That’s a lot bigger deal than, well... than doing something even animals do.”

Kurt’s face is completely unreadable. Too many emotions, too much confusion. Sadness. Excitement. But mostly conflict. Burt continues.

“Now like I said, you’re not going to be with this boy forever. You have,” he chokes a little, unexpectedly, “you at least have the benefit of knowing that ahead of time. I’m telling you son, if you get used to being with someone like that, it never feels right without it again.”

By now silent tears are running down the boy’s cheeks and he’s clinging to the edges of his composure. “I know, Dad. I think about college every day. I’ve spent my whole life looking forward to getting out of this town and I never thought I’d ever have any reason not to be miserable here. I mean, I dreamed of having a boyfriend. And when I got one, I was so happy. But I just...” he breaks down a little and wipes his cheeks with the ball of his hand. “I never thought I’d love him this much, Dad.”

Burt hugs his son to him and lets him cry into his neck. “I know, Kurt. I know. It’s so hard being young.” He remembers those days with a clarity than can only come from never having left. He knows Kurt will have no such issue--he’ll be out the door and out of the state the day he graduates--but right now that doesn’t matter. Right now, his whole world is built around text messages and big, funny-colored eyes and snuck kisses he thinks nobody sees. And it’s got to be worse for the kid, because while Burt’s lovestruck teenage mooning was bad enough, he at least had a sea full of other fish when things went south. Burt’s sure there are other gay kids at Dalton, and probably even at McKinley, but how many? Maybe ten? And how many of them are out? Three? Four? At least one of which has to have been Blaine’s ex-boyfriend. If this boy goes, all of Kurt’s dreams of having some semblance of a normal teenagerdom go with him.

After a while, Kurt takes a deep breath, composes himself, and sits back up. “The thing is, I’ve thought about this. Kind of a lot. But...well, what you said earlier...it’s going to happen someday, right? And I...I’m just afraid that...I know from crappy firsts, Dad, and this is one I can control. I mean, it can either happen now, with someone I love that I know loves me back, because we care about each other and just want to be together that way. Or it can happen when I’m a lonely college freshman with some random guy at a bar because I’ve had too many shots of tequila.”

Burt wishes that, just once, his son could do something that made him happy out of nothing more complicated than just wanting to, instead of desperation. He wants to argue, but he knows Kurt’s got a point. He’d love to think nothing like that would ever happen and that Kurt will have his heart broken just a little when Blaine leaves, go off to college, have a few casual dates that end with a handshake, then meet the love of his life and get married and stay married until the day he dies--first. And maybe it will be like that. Who knows? But there’s a lot of uncertainty and Kurt’s impulsiveness and inability to curb the enthusiasm of his heart aren’t working in his favor.

If Kurt were going to his girlfriend’s house, that’d be easy. It would be a resounding “no,” and a look that indicated he was clearly crazy. If Burt had though for one second Kurt was actually going to have sex with that leggy blond he “caught” him with that time, he’d have dragged him out of that basement by his cufflinks. If Kurt were his daughter, the question wouldn’t have come up at all, because looking so much like his mother, Burt would have made camp on the front porch with a shotgun the day he turned 13. But as much as he hates to admit it, this situation turns right and wrong upside down.

He’s been chewing on how he feels about things for a long time--what are the limits and why are they there? Nobody’s getting pregnant, obviously, which is number one with a bullet on the list of reasons to keep your teenage son in check. There’s a morality argument, but Burt’s looked sideways at “morality” ever since it tried to tell him that the most genuine, sensitive, caring boy you would ever meet is doing something terrible just by waking up in the morning. He’s left with protecting Kurt from himself and from a young gentleman that has never been anything but a godsend. If anything, Blaine might be the one in need of protection.

Maybe Blaine can be inoculation against the men that will someday try to take advantage Kurt. Maybe if Burt grits his teeth and lets this happen, Kurt will come to expect to be treated with the respect and love Blaine gives him and there will be fewer nights spent crying over someone unfit to polish his shoes, much less be the cause of his tears. No one is ever good enough for your baby, but Blaine is pretty damn close.

“Whose idea was this?” he asks, continuing the routine.

“Both of ours. But he told me to ask you first. And not to come if you said no.”

“What are you planning on doing?”

“I don’t know. Nothing. Just...being around each other without a hundred people over our shoulders.”

“He’s not pressuring you to do anything you don’t want to, is he?”

Kurt barks with laughter. “Oh, Dad, if you only knew.”

“Well, I don’t, and I don’t think I want to. One more question.”

“Shoot.”

“Will you call when you get there?”

Kurt’s smiles his most genuine smile, the one that makes his mouth look too wide and crinkles his eyes almost shut. The one he’s usually too self-conscious to let out because he knows solemnity suits his sharp features better. The one that makes Burt forget he’s 16 and not six.

“I always do,” he says, kissing his cheek. “See you Sunday?”

“See you tomorrow.”

The door clicks shut and the house sinks back into an emptiness that Carole and Finn have helped alleviate, but can never entirely fill. When Kurt came home from Dalton, Burt felt like he’d gotten a stay of execution. Someday that door is going to close on him a final time, and he’s going to drive off a grown man, only to return on holidays and the odd weekend. Someday, he’s going to kiss his dad on the cheek and say “I’m heading home now,” and mean someplace other than here.

Today isn’t that day.

Burt knows it’s one night, and it’s barely anything more than the dozens of sleepovers with friends Burt was actually sort of grateful for. It feels different, though. Like something has changed between them and a different boy--a different young man-- is going to glide into the living room tomorrow, probably with his polite and handsome boyfriend (lover?) in tow. Burt will go to his grave never asking what happens tonight, but even if those two do nothing more than quote scripture to each other from opposite ends of the couch, the fact remains that Burt has handed the reigns of Kurt’s life and body to Kurt himself. He prays sixteen years was long enough to teach him to steer straight.

~*~

If Burt had ever asked, however, he would have been relieved. All they do is sleep and talk. Late night closeness and Kurt’s conversation with his father loosens their tongues and they find themselves talking about the future for the first time.

They swear that night that after they graduate--which is a hundred thousand years from now--they’ll do whatever it takes to stay best friends. It means, once they leave for college, not being boyfriends and not trying to stay in a “relationship” and not feeling committed to each other in a romantic sense. What they were to each other first was the kind of friends that you can carry with you forever if you don’t screw it up.

“We’ll be in each other’s weddings,” Blaine promises. “On one side or the other.”

~*~

Graduation, it turns out, isn’t actually a hundred thousand years away and it’s there before they know it. They trade gifts laden with the pretentious, maudlin depth of young love: Blaine gives Kurt a leather bound book of Greek myths, a purple ribbon marking the story of Achilles and Patrocles. Kurt gives Blaine a gold medallion of Saint Jude, the patron saint of hope for the hopeless. They reminisce and hug and kiss and more and settle in for a summer of living deliberately.

~*~

Kurt’s got that face on. The one where he is going to say something and you not wanting to hear it, or it being a bad idea to say out loud, or it not even making a lot of sense is absolutely not going to stop him. Blaine sighs into his book and readies himself for the oncoming storm.

“I’m afraid of going to college a virgin.”

Okay. That’s a whole new level of “what the fuck.” Blaine takes a moment to compose himself and to decide exactly how much he’s going to regret it if he follows this line of discussion.

“First of all, at what point did we become the gay version of a teen movie? And secondly, I think you calling yourself a virgin is really pushing maximum density of that word’s meaning.”

Kurt closes his eyes impatiently. “Blaine. First of all, I’m serious. Secondly, I’m still a virgin in the way that counts. And so are you. I think. You never said directly, but I’m going by the other stuff you hadn’t done before me and how everything kind of goes in a certain order. Did you go out of order?”

Oh good god. The “counts” thing again. Had Kurt been a girl, Blaine is afraid to think about what he would have done when he got his first period.

“Kurt, I don’t think your ‘counts’ and my ‘counts’ are the same thing here. I’ve been counting for a pretty long time. Like, pre-you long time. To be blunt.”

Kurt looks offended, puzzled, horrified, curious. Angry? “Ok, fine, Don Juan. What ‘counts’ to you?”

Blaine thinks for a moment then, against his better judgement, answers, “Achieving climax with the assistance of another person equals not a virgin.”

Kurt is looking at him like he’s an incredibly stupid child. “By your reasoning, I lost my virginity to Paul Newman the night my dad made me watch Cool Hand Luke with him the first time. That’s the worst definition I’ve ever heard.”

“You could do worse than Newman,” Blaine dodges. Kurt is patient, though. Aggravatingly patient. Blaine knows he’ll wait him out with an eyebrow and questions timed for the exact second he feels safe to go back to his reading. Fine. He’ll play. “So, Kurt, even though I’m kind of afraid to know, please tell me what ‘counts’ to you and why you apparently think what we’ve been doing for the last several months doesn’t.”

“Actual sex,” he says.

“You’ve done actual things that actually have ‘sex’ in the name. So done and done.”

“God, Blaine, don’t make me say it. I can, but I won’t, it’s too vulgar and completely unromantic.”

This is getting old. Pretty fast, actually. “Say what, Kurt, ‘sex’? You say it all the time. You said it three seconds ago.”

Now they’re both annoyed. This is going to end great. “The other half of that phrase, Blaine. I’m not going to say it because it sounds awful. And disgusting. And not like something people who are as coolly superior as we are would actually participate in. Even the euphemism are horrible. Sodomy? Buggery? Keelhauling?”

“Keel--Kurt, that’s not what that means.”

Kurt looks taken utterly aback. “Wait, no? So pirates don’t--”

“Oh, I’m positive that pirates do, that’s just not what keelhauling is. Or it wasn’t. Now it is.”

They look at each other for a moment then burst out laughing. “So all this time, I though pirate movies were so much better than they actually were,” Kurt gasps. “My childhood. Ruined!”

Blaine can barely breathe. “Oh my god, oh my gu--oh! So, like, you though Treaure Island involved gay sex? I now understand everything about you.”

“Well, Jesus, Blaine, look at their names! ‘Long John Silver’? ‘Calico Jack’?”

“‘Captain Dee’s’?” It’s starting to hurt he’s laughing so hard. If he doesn’t stop, he’s going to pass out or pee himself or worse. They eventually die down to shuddery giggles, collapsed next to each other on the bed. Kurt winds their fingers together tenderly, still flushed and smiling impossibly wide, but more serious.

“This is why I want it to be you,” he says more softly. “The first time is going to be strange and awkward and probably kind of terrible and I’m really, truly scared of being humiliated. But you’ll make it okay. You won’t embarrass me about it, no matter how bad I am at it. I don’t think before I do things, Blaine. You know that. I don’t want to get to school and not think and have an awful experience. If it’s ever going to be okay with anyone, it’s going to be okay with you.”

When Kurt’s being sincere like this--when the bravado and posturing are gone and it’s just this naked, open honesty he wears so well--Blaine loves him the most and can almost never tell him no. But this isn’t that easy.

“I know what you mean. And, no, I didn’t ‘go out of order,’ I haven’t done that either. You know that and you were just trying to get a reaction out of me. I kind of feel the same way, though. Not about not thinking--that’s no problem here--but about you. How you’d make it okay. Part of me does want it to be you. But part of me...” He doesn’t want to talk about this right now. He always winds up feeling punched in the gut and unable to sleep and unable to just enjoy their time together because he’s thinking about how it’s all going to end. Kurt looks so frightened, though, and hurt. He can’t just leave it there.

“Part of me doesn’t want to make this worse than it’s already going to be. I know we’re doing the right thing, just being friends after graduation. I know it, because we can either have that forever or try doing the stupid long distance thing and either have an ugly break-up or just...grow apart. And that’s good, right? It’s just not going to be easy. And I think if we--if we’re together that way--it’s going to be harder to just...stop.”

Kurt’s somber now, thinking hard. “What if it’s our goodbye?” he asks, shaking a little. “What if that’s like...the grand finale, right before we leave. We do that and leave as friends with this amazing bond and nothing left to wonder about?” He turns over on his side so he can make better eye contact. “Don’t tell me you won’t wonder. I will. You’ve had all my firsts--from holding hands on. There’s only one more left and it just seems...appropriate. Right.”

His throat is so tight he doesn’t know if he can answer. He will wonder, he knows. And if it’s just once, just that crucial first time, then it can’t become complacent and he can’t get used to it. They can make this special, which is a lot more than most people get. He wants this because he wants him and he can’t imagine how long it will take to love someone else this much.

“Okay,” he chokes. “Okay.”

~*~

The weekend before Blaine, whose school starts first, is to move out, they nick a bottle of wine from Blaine’s cellar, get a pricey room in Columbus and spend the night discarding the remains of every permutation of their virginities. As predicted, it’s strange and awkward, but too sweet to be terrible. There are frustrations and false starts and things that are painful and confusing. There’s one particularly tense moment when the whole thing seems like a bad idea until one of them--later, each blames the other--quietly mutters the word “keelhaul” and they both sob with laughter and remember that this is neither a funeral nor brain surgery.

Afterward, they lay tangled together, sharing the last of the secrets they’ve kept about each other (“I told my teacher I was in love with you before we were even dating.” “I know, I heard.”) and trying not to sleep. Blaine rubs his thumb over the perfect impression of Jude Thaddeus his necklace has made on Kurt’s shoulder, wishing he could burn that mark into him, forever. It’s the closest he’s ever felt to anyone, and will be, until the first time his son falls asleep on his chest.

Five minutes before check-out, they’re staring at the door to their room like it’s the gates of hell. “We walk out of here friends,” Kurt says with finality. They kiss goodbye, long, slow, sad, and step into the hall. Out of habit, Blaine reaches for Kurt’s hand then pulls away like he’s been bitten.

“No, wait,” Kurt says and links their hands--palms cupped together instead of fingers interlaced. “See? Like I do with Mercedes.”

They make the drive back saying very little and making great effort not to touch each other. Blaine doesn’t walk Kurt to his door, doesn’t come in for a minute to say hi to Carole and Burt and Finn. They’ve agreed to a one month cooling off period with minimal contact--just a text to say they made it safe to college, let each other know they’re okay. Before he’s even out of Lima, Blaine’s already seen and heard and thought twelve things he wants to tell Kurt. At the city limits sign, he pulls over and, for the second time in his life, cries over a boy.

~*~

One month to the day, at 12:01 a.m., his phone rings.

They text, they Skype, they email, all within reason, of course. They’re back, with a difference. Since friends talk about everything, they talk about everything, including the boys they’ve kissed (Blaine a few, Kurt a lot), the boys they’re interested in (Blaine needs to focus on his grades, Kurt needs to focus on inner qualities instead of prettiness), the boys they’ve more-than-kissed (Blaine nobody, Kurt mostly nobody--under the shirt doesn’t count if you’re not a girl, right? Because why?). It’s not as hard as he feared or as easy as he hoped. Most of the time, Blaine’s happy for their chats and doesn’t think about him too much in between. But sometimes Kurt says things. Things that stick in his head, that make it hard to sleep, and hard to flirt with the quiet blond in his poly sci class.

Like when talking about his now former roommate, who asked Kurt to step into the hall when he changed clothes, he says : “So I showed him your picture on my phone and was like, ‘This is the last guy I slept with. Why do you think I would even look at you?’”

Like when Blaine makes fun of the fish bowl of pink wine he’s sipping during a Skype session, he says: “Well, I can’t drink Merlot anymore because it tastes like your mouth.”

Like when, apropos of nothing, he blurts: “My bed smells like you and I don’t know why.”

~*~

They make love again that Christmas and Blaine rolls his eyes so hard because his stupid brain won’t quit calling it that, even though he’s not a 13 year old girl for god’s sake, who says that?

They probably should have know better than to be alone, in Kurt’s bedroom, at night, watching some movie with no lights on, especially since Blaine can’t concentrate on anything but the odd sense of relief he feels holding this boy. Kurt falls asleep halfway through whatever French monstrosity they’ve picked out, curled up in Blaine’s arms. Because cuddling is okay--friends cuddle all the time. Kurt, in fact, seems to be on retainer for an entire sorority’s nap time needs. Blaine’s starting to drift off, too, when Kurt whimpers and thrashes in his sleep, first softly, then with more urgency. Blaine wakes him gently and the naked, confused fear in Kurt’s eyes is too much to take. “It was her again,” he gasps. “And him and me, too.”

Blaine shushes and pets him, then kisses him for comfort. Then he kisses him deeper because it feels so familiar and safe and good. And then they just...don’t stop. In the silver dark, Blaine can forget they’ve ever been anything less than what they used to be.

Blaine has a brief moment of clarity, where he realizes that this is a bad idea. But Kurt’s making these soft, sharp gasping sounds beneath him like he’s close, and god, what is he supposed to do? The damage--the beautiful, wonderful damage--is already done. He wants this so much--not just now, but constantly, and with him. The truth is, Kurt’s never gotten far from his mind. He misses him and wants him and even though they’re still such close friends, it’s not been enough. “Love is so short, forgetting is so long,” he remembers from a poem. He has to let himself forget. He takes off his necklace and Kurt watches with hazy, amused eyes as Blaine presses it into Kurt’s shoulder with his thumb, just enough to leave an impression.

When they talk about it the next morning, they seem to be in agreement on one thing: the best way to ruin their friendship is to become fuck buddies. “Because when we’re with other people,” Blaine reasons, “we can’t do that. And if that’s all we have...there won’t be an us.”

“You’re right, of course,” Kurt says. But there’s a growing distance in his eyes. Blaine knows Kurt wants to scream “why do we have to be with other people?” and he knows why Kurt refrains. Blaine’s own heart wonders the same thing, but fortunately, smarter systems prevail.

They stay on the wagon, for the most part. Spring semester, Blaine sees Bryan from poly sci a couple of times and somehow it turns into them not really seeing anyone else. By April, Kurt’s got someone, too. A large figure that Blaine sees skulking around in the background on Skype once. By June, though, he’s gone.

But there’s a night that summer, on one of many nights spent together staring at the sky from the hood of his car, that the stars force Blaine to press a chaste kiss onto Kurt’s jawline, before Kurt giggles uncomfortably and scoots away. “Bryan?” he admonishes. Blaine feels physically ill that he was a heartbeat away from becoming a guy that cheats on his boyfriend.

Then it’s Christmas again, and Bryan is gone in a pretty messy series of arguments about, fuck, Blaine doesn’t even know. The New Year party is at the Hudson-Hummel house, owing, in part, to Burt and Carole’s long delayed honeymoon. They left the day before and will be ringing in the New Year with a week in Florida. Their friends from McKinley and a couple from Dalton are there and Blaine can feel them all watching him and Kurt with barely guarded interest. When he tells Finn about his break-up, Finn pours him the first of many white Russians from the cooler Quinn brought. He looks from Blaine to Kurt, who is toting around a bottle of champagne, then back again. “Be careful with him, okay?” Finn pleads.

At 8:00 p.m., Kurt announces with wide, bright eyes and the very beginnings of a slur, that it’s now midnight in eastern Greenland. He plants a firm and silly smooch on Blaine’s lips then flits off. At nine, it’s midnight in the rest of Greenland and this geographic anomaly earns Blaine a harder, sloppier, slightly drunker kiss. As the hours and drinks wear on, it keeps being midnight somewhere, until a giddy Blaine finds himself more than a little tipsy and pinned to the floor with Kurt’s tongue halfway down his throat from Akron to Denver. Somewhere near Reno, enough vodka has worn off for him to notice that the party is dying down around them a little. But not enough has worn off for him to be smart. Kurt’s still straddling him, still kissing him with a lazy passion as they take turns drinking from the latest champagne bottle to magically appear next to them.

Blaine glances back over his head toward the closed door of Kurt’s bedroom. “Can we...?” he breathes. Kurt scowls and pulls back. “No. No, of course not. What the hell is wrong with you?” Blaine starts to stammer an apology but isn’t sure what to say. Kurt settles back on his heels, weight dropping onto Blaine’s thighs. “You regretted me last time. You made me feel awful. You never get me again. Never.”

Blaine is suddenly completely sober. He sits up and catches Kurt’s wrists. “I am so sorry. God, you’re right...I don’t know what I was thinking just now. I just miss you and you were kissing me like that--what was I supposed to think?” Confident that Kurt’s not going to storm off, he lets go of his wrists and wraps gentle arms around his waist. “And I am so, so sorry that I made you think I regretted you. I could never... I regretted how I felt. We were kids--we are kids--and I never want to completely lose you. I think about you all the time. God, Kurt, if there was any way--any way at all we could be together now...”

Kurt’s staring straight into him. “You’re going to want to marry me someday, you know. When you figure out I’m worth the inconvenience. Just hope that I’ll still have you.” Kurt rises unsteadily and totters away, somehow more dignified dishevelled and drunk than Blaine feels on his best day.

When the alcohol has left his system enough for him to drive, he finds Kurt passed out in his room and watches him for a moment. He wants to crawl into that bed, fall asleep next to him, and file for a university transfer first thing in the morning. Instead, he finds a felt tipped pen on Kurt’s desk and writes “I love you always” on the inside of Kurt’s left wrist. He remembers something Kurt said to him years ago: ”I have to stop being yours in my head.” It’s come back to that now, and Blaine leaves without saying goodbye.

~*~

That’s why, the following October, he finds out from fucking Facebook that Kurt is transferring to OSU at the semester to be closer to his ailing dad. A few hours later, Kurt’s relationship status changes to Single and for a brief moment, Blaine has the impulse to follow him back to Ohio. He wouldn’t, of course, and it’s literally just a second, but it’s enough. Anthony is a nice guy and Blaine’s being unfair. He ends things with his boyfriend and promises himself he won’t get exclusive with anyone until he can be sure he’d choose them.

Blaine picks up the phone and calls his best friend. Like he should have been doing all along.

~*~

It’s just before midnight almost a year later when he gets a text: “at the hospitol with dad. almst over. can i call you tomorrow? need someon” No upper case letters, bad spelling. He’s pressing the callback button as soon as he sees the word “hospitol.” They’ve been in contact at least every week, went to each other’s graduations, make a point to see each other when Blaine’s in town (and a few times, Blaine’s completely fabricated reasons for being in town), have dated people with varying degrees of enthusiasm, from lukewarm to downright apathy. Being together never comes up, though they sometimes find themselves twining their fingers together when they see each other or muttering “I love you” at the end of a late night phone call. The still live far apart and Kurt’s got enough to deal with. Again. Despite all this, Blaine can’t help but feel, in the most buried part of his mind, that he’s circling a drain and that this ends with an ultimatum and either a wedding or a lot of gin. The “someday” of Kurt’s New Year prophecy came a long time ago. Probably, if Blaine is honest, just seconds after it was uttered.

When Kurt answers, the voice at the end of the line gives him the distinct sensation of falling over an edge.

Kurt doesn’t sound hysterical, he’s not even crying. He sounds...exhausted. Monotone. Dull. They talk for hours, Kurt never coming out of his complacent drone, until Blaine says “Kurt? Sweetheart? I’m so sorry, but I have to go--they won’t let me through security until I hang up.”

There’s a significant pause and Kurt says with actual inflection, “Blaine, are you at the airport?”

It occurs to him that he never actually said out loud that he had his laptop open by the time Kurt said “hello.” That he was throwing clothes into a carry-on bag while Kurt went through the catechism of medical terms and procedures. That he made a 45 minute drive in the 22 minutes it took for Kurt to recount how they found his father still and barely breathing in the living room, so that he wouldn’t miss the 2:05 to Detroit. It occurs to him that this is insane and might come off as a little weird. It occurs to him that he doesn’t give a damn.

“Of course I am,” he scoffs. “I’ll be there by morning. You’re at University Medical, right? What room?”

It’s then that Kurt breaks down. “Oh god. Oh my god, thank you. Thank you thank you thank you so much.”

He asks if Carole is there and she is and he tells her he’s on his way, he’s rented a car, and make sure Kurt calls him if he needs anything at all. He checks in when they’re in the air, when they land, and would have stayed on the phone during the should-have-been three hour drive from Detroit to Columbus except Kurt said he really didn’t need a second tragedy, so just hang up and drive. He walks into the taupe and mauve room (“Yes, he’s family. That’s my son-in-law,” Carole tells the nurse) just as the light is turning gray and the sky is warming at the edges.

Kurt has fallen asleep sitting on a stool, arms folded onto the bed next to the thin, wan man that cannot be his strong, solid father. Blaine wishes he had the power of Athena to let this man of sorrows just sleep until all is well. But Kurt is the gray-eyed one. Blaine’s are gold, like Achilles; he’ll have to be content with strength, not magic.

Carole, so much grayer than he remembers, tells him that Kurt had fallen asleep like that--the first time he’d slept in two days--minutes after he found out Blaine was on the road. She clings to his arm and they watch their loves resting together. “How long can you stay?” she whispers at last.

“Forever, if he’ll let me,” he answers

~*~

He drives alone to Kurt’s apartment a few minutes away to clean up and change clothes. Carole told him to get a few hours sleep, but she’s obviously out of her mind with grief if she thinks that’s actually going to happen. On the way out the door, his hip catches an end table and upsets a half filled glass of juice, left out in haste. Before he even knows what he’s doing, he’s thrown it against the wall, where it shatters unsatisfactorily into four pieces. He sits down hard on the floor and just sobs.

He’s crying for Kurt, of course, and Carole, and even Finn. He’s also crying for Burt, who’s stepping out just as he’s getting to the good part--weddings and grandbabies and golden years with his second chance. And he’s crying for himself, because he loves Burt, too, and he’s mourning the life he knows he’s going to leave behind without a backward glance to do what he’s been made to do since he was sixteen: be Kurt’s port in a storm. Nothing should ever be this easy or this hard.

When everything is cleaned up and he gets back to the hospital, he walks into a room filled with gasping, near hysterical laughter. Kurt and Carole are crying with it and can’t catch their breath enough to let him in on the joke. But god, he doesn’t care, it’s just so amazing to see him smile, even if Blaine knows it’s from him cracking under the strain. So Blaine tells them about the spilled juice, dramatizing the absurdity of his reaction, downplaying the actual pain and Kurt collapses against him with a sigh.

~*~

At Blaine and Carole’s insistence, Kurt lets Blaine take him for a walk. They move silent through the sterile halls, out the doors, into pieces of the hospital that are beginning to look like a world beyond beeps and tubes and pain. They find a green place, a place with sun and plants and flowers that bloom despite the coldness of everything around them. The speak softly, Kurt slowly unraveling the ball of grief and guilt and exhaustion, confessing how he’s, in a terrible way, happy that there’s an end in sight. Blaine holds his hand and tells him how he’s never know anyone so brave or so selfless.

They sit on a bench, shoulder to shoulder, hands intertwined, swaying very gently to a song only Kurt hears.

“I’m so glad you came,” Kurt whispers at last. “I don’t know what I’d do without you.”

Blaine feels something heavy inside him, something that nearly chokes him. “I...thank you, Kurt. For needing me. Because I’ll always need you so much more.”

Kurt looks at him, eyes wide, brows drawn slightly. “It’s kind of all the same, though. Isn’t it? I mean,” he looks down at their hands for a moment. “Needing each other. Needing to be needed. There’s not really any place where you stop and I begin.”

And in that moment, Blaine sees something. Sees how Kurt understands them, and how nothing ever ends with love, when it’s real. How when you watch the people you love the very most die, the people your very body compels you to need, silly things like distance and lovers and time are just ephemera. Inconsequential window sheers of distance that provided only the illusion of separation.

“I really want to kiss you right now,” Blaine says, wondering if Kurt remembers like he does.

The way his face softens and his eyes fill and his sad, sweet smile tells Blaine, even before he speaks, it’s as vivid a memory for Kurt as it is for him. “And I want you to,” Kurt echoes softly.

“I’m just so nervous,” Blaine says, knowing if this distance closes, it’s staying shut for good.

“I know. It’s okay.”

“What if I’m awful at this?”

Kurt doesn’t respond with the next line. He just shakes his head, sniffs back tears. “You can’t be, Blaine. You’re not perfect, but you’re perfect for me.”

Kurt cups his cheek, gently, but with no hesitation. Blaine forgets to look around and see if anyone’s watching, see if there’s some idiot going to make some remark, forgets to remember that there’s anything different about them than any other two people so, so in love, except the fact that they are extraordinary and beautiful.

They haven’t kissed in years, but you’d never know. Their lips meeting softly feels like Blaine’s letting out a breath he’d been holding ever since he’d pulled Kurt’s wrist into his lap that New Year’s Day and written in Sharpie what he couldn’t bring himself to actually say out loud. There’s nothing desperate at all, nothing needy. Just comfort and warmth and such incredible softness, Blaine feels like he’s surrounded by light.

Everything that isn’t Kurt is so far away. Nothing that isn’t cool hands and a damp mouth and coffee peppermint Kurt Hummel breath on his lips can touch him. He’ll have to leave again, he knows, at least for a little while. But he’s never really going to be gone.

~*~

There’s no way Blaine could ever know, and perhaps it’s best that he didn’t, but it’s his familiar voice, the tenderness with which he watches and touches Burt’s son over those long next hours, and the way Kurt softens into him and seems something like safe that gives Burt the assurance he needs to let go of the pain at last, close his eyes, and give his tired heart rest.

~*~

Eventually, Blaine will return to his apartment long enough to break his lease, pay the fine, and load what will fit into his car. He’ll leave his key with the landlord, call Salvation Army, and tell them that whatever is left is theirs. The volume and quality of what they’ll receive will make the lady in charge of donations burst into tears.

Tonight, though, he’s not going anywhere. When it ends, it’s quiet and both Carole and Kurt face it with acceptance and relief, having spent the last of their shock and a lot of their mourning long ago. Finn is there to take Carole home and after it all, that’s all she and Kurt really want. Home. Back at Kurt’s apartment, Blaine watches him take half of the pill the doctor gave him to help him sleep and undress for a much needed shower.

“Kurt?” he asks as Kurt pulls his undershirt over his head. Blaine rests a hand on his arm in gentle restraint as something catches his eye.

It’s a mark. On his shoulder. Blaine’s heart stops and he can’t breathe, because in black ink, etched onto Kurt’s body is a small line drawing of a man in robes holding a staff and a portrait. “Saint Jude,” it says. “Pray for Us.” It looks so out of place on the clean lines of his body, under his meticulous clothing.

“I forgot about that,” Kurt says quietly, almost smiling. “I got it that Christmas, when we said...said we were done with...” he gestures futilely. “I never thought you’d see it. I just wanted to remember us. Because even though we weren’t going to end up together, what we had been was just so important. I wanted to always remember that someone like you loved me.”

Blaine can’t stop touching it. It’s so cliche and so dramatic and so perfect. There’s nothing that can be said right now, because while he would do anything for this to not be happening to Kurt, he’s also never been so happy for himself. And god, what do you say? “I love you” seems stupid, inadequate. Something he first said as a schoolboy to an unsure young man on a lazy afternoon. Of course he loves Kurt--look where he is. And there’s no point in Kurt saying it back--it’s written into his skin, forever. “This is the best thing I’ve ever seen,” he says at last. Whatever that means.

Kurt pulls his hand away and holds on for a moment. “Listen. If this is out of line, I get it. But I...I really want you right now, okay? Is that weird?” Exhaustion, sadness, and age have stripped away all self-consciousness. It’s just a question and a request. A statement of need.

Blaine shakes his head. “No. It’s...normal. I think. I get it.” Sex and death, love and grief. All are of a piece. “Just relax. Lay down. I’ll take care of you.”

The person in his arms is so very different than the young man that propositioned him the first time, just a few years but a lifetime ago. He’s nearly unrecognizable as the boy whose hand Blaine grabbed in the first of many baffling impulses Kurt somehow makes him indulge. He’s grown into his body, grown out of his shrillness, let go of some of that wonder and idealism. But those eyes are the same and Blaine can still see every thought flicker through them, although they’re growing glassy with desire and sleepiness now. He still looks at Blaine with pride and awe and it still stops his heart.

In the years they’ll spend together, tonight will get jumbled up in a mass of emotions and memories that will blunt the edges of the intensity of it. It will be one of a hundred gains and losses tallied up in the ledger of a life. More important, oddly, than their wedding day. Less than when they bring home their son. It’s an ordinary life--the only thing remotely special is the rareness with which high school romances turn into something permanent. Even then, they had time apart to become themselves. And that’s okay. As any sky full of stars could tell you, ordinary can be beautiful.

This doesn’t stop Blaine from feeling extraordinary tonight, though, like he is and has the best thing in the world. Like making love to temper sadness is some great secret they’ve discovered that maybe they’ll share or maybe they’ll keep to themselves. Like everyone who has ever known them couldn’t have told him it would come to this: that he will always, always be there to take Kurt’s hand and run away.


End file.
